Nonsense. Look at the quote from Walid Abid, also check out this quote:
"I am not scared and I am not going to stay put at home," said Abid, who owns a cafe. "Until when? We need to change things. If I stay home and not come to vote, Azamiyah will get worse."
Does that not (and please don't believe I supported this illegal invasion for one second) illustrate the wonderful effect democracy* can have. How the Iraqi people are, for all this conflict's failings, trying to embrace democracy. That all those civilian deaths listed in the pretty graph** above are not for nothing.
*any person considering not voting in the upcoming General Election should seriously have a rethink. How much we take our society for granted. How apathetic can a nation become? (over a third choose, on a consistent basis, not to vote at all.) And please don't suggest that this group of people are somehow 'protesting' by not voting at all. The vast majority have no passion for the vote, no passion for democracy any more and probably no passion for the society around them. Oh the beauty of Western liberal democracy.
** The "beauty of Western liberal" democratic media reporting surfaces its ugly head. A lovely pretty graph to illustrate the civilian deaths. Oh look, it goes up in the middle, it was really bad then you know. And then what? It falls, progress you see. A lovely pretty graph to measure death, innocent deaths, civilian deaths. Not only that - look at the smaller word, the killer word, the slightly less bold font than the other words - 'thousands'. So the lovely, pretty, purple up-and-down graph, with the numbers 1,2,3 and 4 running up the left, has a whole different meaning when your eyes scan up the left side of the graph. All those pretty purple bars, are thousands and thousands and thousands of dead, innocent people. You wouldn't know that from all the 'prettiness' though, would you?
Also read this, Iraqis defy intimidation to vote, attacks kill 36
No comments:
Post a Comment